You might have seen the government telling us they protected 20,000 ha of South Gippsland’s long-suffering forests. There are only tiny remnants left of this once vast expanse of tall wet forest that supported the tallest trees on earth. Conservationists down that way mapped out what they call the Cores and Links in 2001 – …
By May 2004, the Victorian Government had funded the clearfelling of forests burnt in the 2003 fires to the tune of $6.9 million. Another $4 million was given to help the woodchip industry continue its access the following year. Then in 2007 we taxpayers gave at least $868,000 to help the industry clearfell the 2006 …
In early February 2008, tree grower Great Southern Plantations announced an export deal to Asia of 400,000 tonnes of eucalypt woodchips. This means it will send almost half a million tonnes a year for five years to Hokuetsu Paper Mills in Japan, starting in 2009. Using estimates from the BRS 2007 hardwood plantation chiplog supply, …
The headline in the Sunday Age in early December 2007 was ‘How to turn $99 million worth of trees into a $17,000 loss’. VicForests was exposed as incompetent economic managers of our public forests. Even with a state government gift of tens of millions of dollars to get it set up, it’s still not profitable …
Forestry NSW is looking at how to counteract the effects of ‘red oxide’ in wood, just in case it’s ever injected into woodchip trees. Apparently it renders wood useless for chipping and paper-making. Who would do such a silly thing?
Environment East Gippsland commissioned an opinion poll of East Gippsland residents in 2002. We believe the results, if a poll was to be carried out now, would show much greater support for forest protection. After years of the Goolengook blockade, in 2002 the government decided to send in the forces to break up the protest …
For years, NSW conservationists have been fighting to find out the price Forests NSW gets for the logs that are woodchipped and shipped to Japan. After a long battle to obtain these figures under Freedom of Information, Gerry Watt, a Tilba conservationist, scored a victory in early September. Stephen Montgomery of The NSW Administrative Decisions …
After three years as the new semi-corporate arm of the government logging agency, VicForests was going down the economic gurgler. For the first two years after its creation, VicForests was given an easy run with DSE picking up the tab for many costs, but year three was to see it ‘off the dole’ and making …
Before the election the Bracks government made a quiet little offering to get rid of the niggling pressure they were under regarding their long time promise to protect the Gippsland Strzelecki forests. Their offer was a compromise to protect the important central sites and its connecting links (called ‘cores and links’) but if you read …
The Japanese export woodchip mill at Eden in NSW held a celebration for all past and present staff and families in early December to mark the first time in the mill’s 36-year history that it has produced one million tonnes of woodchips for export in one year. Most of this was thanks to three main …
